For Your Consideration: Early 2012 Oscar Predictions

With the Oscars now a three day-old memory, the time has come for the final edition of this column. I can't say I'm particularly saddened. From the Toronto International Film Festival's unofficial awards season kick-off in September to last weekend's mediocre ceremony, it's been six long months of speculation and anticipation, and I'm ready to move on (as I'm sure many of you are as well). While I'm sure I could rant on more about the ceremony (I already did here), and the predictability of nearly every major winner (though the tech categories screwed over my prognosticatory bragging rights with a few surprises), is there really any point anymore? The moment "The King's Speech" solidified its status as this year's surefire choice for best picture of the year, my awards season was over.

With the Oscars now a three day-old memory, the time has come for the final edition of this column. I can't say I'm particularly saddened. From the Toronto International Film Festival's unofficial awards season kick-off in September to last weekend's mediocre ceremony, it's been six long months of speculation and anticipation, and I'm ready to move on (as I'm sure many of you are as well). While I'm sure I could rant on more about the ceremony (I already did here), and the predictability of nearly every major winner (though the tech categories screwed over my prognosticatory bragging rights with a few surprises), is there really any point anymore? The moment "The King's Speech" solidified its status as this year's surefire choice for best picture of the year, my awards season was over.

There is one final column before letting awards talk rest in peace until September. It's been an annual tradition for me to take an ignorant stab at the following year well before there's any substantial evidence in its regard (Sundance aside, that is.. at this point last year we did already know where "The Kids Are All Right" and "Winter's Bone" were heading, though this year's crop is much less promising). Surprisingly, it's not always a total crap shoot. While last year I might have been significantly off the mark with "Love & Other Drugs," "Miral," "Somewhere" and "Hereafter" making the best picture lineup, I did manage to properly predict 4 of the 10 nominations (6 if you count the alternates). More over, I managed to get 4 of the 5 best actress nominees, missing only Jennifer Lawrence (despite, oddly enough, having seen "Winter's Bone" at that point). So before this column lies dormant until the fall... let's give it a shot, keeping in mind that this is more or less a fun little game and not one that I would take too seriously.

There's certainly plenty to choose from, as 2011 looks to be a diverse and potentially quite fulfilling year for cinema.

A scene from "We Need To Talk About Kevin."

We've got some of the greatest working filmmakers out there all giving us new projects, some of them perhaps the most ambitious of their careers. There's Martin Scorsese's extremely expensive 3-D adaptation of family friendly "Hugo Cabret;" Steven Spielberg's double-whammy of "War Horse" and "The Adventures of Tin-Tin," the former the most likely to give him his eighth career best picture nomination; David Cronenberg's Carl Jung-Sigmund Freud biopic "A Dangerous Method," starring a dreamy duo in Viggo Mortensen and Michael Fassbender; Terrence Malick's ridiculously anticipated "The Tree of Life," which was actually predicted last year; and "Life" star Brad Pitt's other big 2012 play for Oscar, Bennett Miller's "Moneyball."

And that's honestly just scratching the surface. With the expanded ten nominees, it's certain less expected films (or films we haven't even heard of yet) could make the cut. And I mean, who knows, maybe Jodie Foster's Mel Gibson dramedy "The Beaver" will go over in a way opposite to that which many expect. At this point, we kind of know nothing. So with that in mind, I present my major category 2012 Oscar predictions, one year in advance:

Best Supporting Actress:Jessica Chastain, The Tree of Life (or The Help, or Take Shelter)Viola Davis, The Help (or Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close)Judi Dench, My Week With MarilynKeira Knightley, A Dangerous MethodNaomi Watts, J. Edgar